It is July 2020 and many school districts still do not exactly know what school is going to look like when it starts. Other districts have already decided that they will begin the school year with distance learning although they are not sure for how long. Some districts have announced they will be remote for the entire first semester and others have plans for in-person learning but most have not yet worked out all the details.
Teachers are apprehensive, rightfully so, about so much of the impending school year being unknown. I went on a socially distanced hike with some of my teacher friends last week, and as we usually do, we talked a lot about school. I should say that we represent 3 school districts and ALL 3 have a different plan for the fall. One district is starting with online learning until at least October, one is doing “blended learning” where students would be in school 2 days a week and working online 3 days, and one plans on starting school with 100% in-person learning and a “distance-learning” option for families who would prefer it. It would probably not surprise you that we talked about the challenges of the upcoming school year; Will the kids be able to wear masks all day? What if a student coughs; do they need to change masks? Will teachers be required to take students temperatures? What students do not fully participate in distance learning activities, zoom calls, etc.? Those were not the topics that consumed most of our conversation.
The real conversation was about how to generate that excitement about a new school year through distance-learning, blended learning, or even socially distanced in-person learning. How can teachers really get to know their students online? What if they are only in person two days a week? If you have ever really known a teacher, you know that a teacher’s joy comes from students, and getting to know your students is a big deal. I taught high school math for 15 years and those kids were the best part of my day by far. I thought about our conversation later that night and came up with an idea. I used to give my kids a “Getting to Know You & How You Feel About Math” survey each year. I wanted to know about my kids’ feelings about math. (If you don’t know this, teachers refer to their students as “their kids” because once they are our students, we care about them like they were our children.) Did they have specific anxieties? Did they LOVE math? Did they love math up until a certain grade? These kinds of questions provide valuable information for the first weeks of school and for easing students fears.
So, I thought about this survey I used to give, and how woefully BORING it was. It was just a few pieces of paper with a bunch of short answer questions. Nothing even remotely fun. It gave me information, but it did not give me a glimpse into my students’ personalities (well, I taught 11th and 12th grade so sometimes there was a little glimpse into their personalities 😊). If I created a digital survey though, I could make this fun and could make it so their personalities would shine through. What if instead of a bunch of short-answer questions, the kids could answer questions like “How do you feel walking into math class” with an emoji? I played around with a template, surveyed my own children and former students about what emojis they would absolutely NEED to answer these questions, and got to work.
I had my final product in about 4 hours. I was so excited to text my friends and send this to them. We decided to send this out over the summer once we had all our student contact information. Imagine that; a FUN summer assignment that came from your MATH teacher? Well, it’s not that hard to believe, we think we are incredibly fun!
I LOVE this idea and I would love it even more if every middle school and high school math teacher would send this to their kids. Even if you are returning for in-person learning, THIS activity is WAY more fun than the survey I used to give, and you will get the results as soon as the kids complete them. It can be assigned via Google Classroom or via email (instructions for assigning with email are included).
I made this product FREE on my Teachers Pay Teachers store and would really love to hear what you think about it, whether your kids enjoyed it, what information you learned, and what you would change about it. Please download this activity and think about assigning it to your students either over the summer or during the first week of school. I hope you enjoy it!
